


All That I Am

by luminare_ardua



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-16
Updated: 2012-04-16
Packaged: 2017-11-03 18:59:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/384769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luminare_ardua/pseuds/luminare_ardua
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel's thoughts on Dean towards the end of Ep. 4.22.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All That I Am

Your eyes, filled with desperate, passionate fire as you strive to make me understand, to make me see your truth look at me with confusion and incomprehension even now, even as I break my faith with my brethren, that you may go free (it shall be so, I _vow_ it so), that you will have time to save the other half of your soul; disbelief that slowly turns to wondering comprehension as my blood breaks your prison—and is that thankfulness? Green hardens into solid determination—you will not fail, that was never an option for you where _he_ is concerned.

Your touch on my fingers is light, heat blossoming, a slight quiver. The weight of the knife haft a slight thing passing from my grasp to yours. Your fingers deftly handle the blade, its edges sharp waves, wet incarnadined tip glistening, symbols with meaning lost to your kind dark on bright steel.

I tried to shield myself with all I knew to do, with what those wiser than I knew, but nothing could stand in your path. How is it that your gaze, your words can strip apart all my learned wisdom, set my world shattering and I am powerless to stop it, that a single word from your mouth erases and remakes me in an instant? You opened my vision, given me doubt in place of blind trust—but I thank you. I _cannot_ do otherwise. In this moment, and perhaps not for many more, I _believe_ in you, that you are worth everything. You trusted me: let me repay that faith now.

Light shines through the window, intensifying as the archangels come, the righteous wrath shining from their faces. The prophet claps a hand on my shoulder, a mix of awe, dread and understanding in his expression. The air thrums. Doom is about to fall. I have disobeyed, and this is the price. You must go, and I must stay. I'll hold them off, all of them. Whatever time I can buy, a minute, a second, a shard of eternity as they spill my Grace; this is my gift, my second vow to you.

All that I am is yours. Perhaps it has been since I was sent to raise you from perdition, only I did not know it until now, when the knowing is bittersweet like the fruit of the first human sin.

I only regret not doing this sooner.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written and posted on LJ in 2009 after the S4 finale.
> 
> I saw kitsu84's collage (link available on the LJ version), and the last picture of all--a black and white rendering of Castiel handing Dean the demon-slaying knife stained with his blood struck a chord in me and inspired this work. Many thanks to tracy_loo_who's detailed and sensitive analysis of the crucial Dean/Castiel moments in the season finale, especially her dissection of the expressions on Castiel's face. I would've been lost without the comments in Tracy's post, and the story certainly would've been somewhat off kilter because of it. I bow to a superior analyst.


End file.
